Posts

Recently, the Canadian federal government approved a pipeline expansion project that adds a second pipeline along an existing route from Edmonton, AB to Burnaby, BC. Here's the map:

The pipeline has its own marketing site, touting the benefits:

Helping us "keep up with the rising global demand for oil" and "increased tax benefits for all of Canada" sounds great, right?

Except that it's misleading. While technically true that demand is rising:

Demand is increasing much slower than previously projectedSupply is increasing as fast or faster than demand
And when supply increases faster than demand, prices fall.
Most projections, including this recent one from oil-price.net, predict that oil prices will stagnate or even decrease over the next few years.
It's also important to note that Alberta oil sells at a significant discount to the "regular" oil price you hear quoted in the news. For instance, when WTI crude fell to $30, Canadian oil was selling…

After my wife and I decided we would be buying a house in the Vancouver area, we dedicated a weekend to visiting open houses.

The market has been very tight on the supply side for years, and just finding something in our price range was extremely difficult.

The first question they asked at each open house was (as it should be), "Are you working with a realtor?"

We hadn't planned to use a realtor, but decided together that to navigate the stormy waters of the GVA market, it would be helpful to have someone with some local and professional knowledge.

After a fairly exhaustive search, I came across Colin Colpitts, who was in the local area. He had a nice, clean website, and had a reasonable number of positive reviews.

I was initially very cautious about signing an agreement, as I had heard stories of people who were essentially "locked in" with a bad agent, but Colin quickly dispersed those fears by writing in a extra clause that made it clear that either of us c…

Popular posts from this blog

As a small business owner, I have no dental or extended health coverage. So a while ago, I decided to sign up for a Manulife CoverMe policy.

Their policies appear to be priced well. The website is nicely done, and the sign up process is entirely online.

It gives you the feeling that they really have their stuff together.

The problem is that as soon as they get your money, the experience goes sharply downhill.

It looks like they invest all of their funds and effort into marketing and getting people to sign up, but as soon as you need service, you're SOL.

Their claims process is straight out of the 1980's, requiring you to snail mail or fax a sheet you need to fill out by hand. You would think they could have managed some sort of electronic method.

I was able to easily set up automatic payments from my credit card online, but when I needed to cancel these payments, I had to phone twice, send two different faxes, and they still deducted two extra payments after cancellation.